Digging for History

Garden Time

One of the most astonishing things to watch in the garden is the innate brilliance young people have in working with the land. While an adult wants to put at least a shovel's length between themself and compost, The Giving Gardeners wanted to touch, smell and share compost with each other. We learned about how compost is organic matter broken down, how all of the scraps from our snack time can help us grow more snack, and that the soil under our feet is millions of years old - recycled over and over again from bones, tree bark, water and, (I was informed adamantly) fairy dust.

To decide what our garden could be, it was important to know what it had been. Compass in hand, The Giving Gardeners followed coordinate directions on a scavenger hunt around the garden. We first found a dinosaur and volcanic rock and discovered that Theropods, (like a Tyrannosaurus Rex) and Ornithischians, (like a Triceratops) had probably walked across the very soil we were standing on. We walked 30 steps Northwest to find a mini glacier buried in the dirt, learning that a real glacier in the ice age carved out the Hudson River. We found squash from the Mohican Native Americans, who named the Hudson the Mahicantuk, (people of the river that flows both ways) and spices from Henry Hudson’s failed voyage to Asia in 1609. We dug up steel from the industrial revolution when factories lined the shores from New York City to Albany, and clay from when the garden used to be a tennis court. Finally, we found a class photo of The Giving Gardeners. As they move on in their curriculum from direction to early American history, there is an enhanced connection to the subject because they have a place in it. To know the history of the land you are about to farm is to see yourself as the culmination of the total history of that place. It gives responsibility and pride to the group of children prepared to be the new caretakers for a small piece of the earth.